On a week when we have celebrated International Women’s Day, and the Council honoured former Edgbaston Councillor Dame Ellen Pinsent by renaming a committee room after her; I am grateful to activist Amil Khan for pointing out to me that last September I overtook the record of Clara Martineau (who was an Edgbaston Councillor between October 1913 and February 1932) to become Edgbaston’s longest serving female Councillor.

Feel very humbled. I certainly wasn’t expecting that when I won my seat from Labour in 1999!

An absolutely fabulous evening at the BCEC in Hill Street, Birmingham tonight – four hundred people came to listen to Boris Johnson and West Midlands Mayor Andy Street, and to give generously to help fund the forthcoming local election campaign in Birmingham.

A great night, a great buzz and a great boost to the Conservative campaign to take back control of Birmingham on May 3rd!

It’s International Women’s Day and I am one of nine Birmingham women Councillors featuring on the City Council’s twitter feed today, encouraging women to register to vote in this year’s local elections. See twitter.com/BhamCityCouncil

The Council also today renamed one of its committee rooms in honour of Dame Ellen Pinsent, the first female Councillor in Birmingham – who was elected to represent Edgbaston.

Birmingham Connected are carrying out a consultation about putting a bus lane on Harborne Road between 7.00am and 10.00am as they say it is one of the most congested roads into the city.

As the three pictures above (all taken around 8.30am this morning, a school day) show, it is not congested along the whole stretch.

It is very congested on Harborne High Street in the mornings, and the section from Metchley Lane to Augustus Rd is congested. Augustus Rd is also very congested as traffic from there and Harborne Rd merge.

Harborne Rd is also congested between Highfield Rd and Five Ways (where there is already a bus lane). However the bit in between isn’t particularly congested as can be seen.

The consultation letter to residents stated that the bus lane won’t take road space from other traffic because the lane is already used for parking. But this isn’t strictly true because the bus lane will be in force from 7.00-10.00am and parking is not allowed on the stretch of road shown above until 9.30am so it IS currently used by traffic.

The plans also intend to take out some parking spaces which will help traffic flow (for example in Vicarage Road), but will be bad news for students at Birmingham City University (where thousands more students are due to arrive in September when the new block on Westbourne Rd opens) and bad news for residents, for example on the Berrow Court Estate, which are already suffering badly from all day parkers.

Initial comments should be in by March 21st but further comments are invited during the first six months of the scheme (under the experimental traffic regulation order powers). Personally I think a longer consultation time ahead of the bus lane going in would have been better for local residents.

Back in September Cllr Matt Bennett and I were given a tour of Birmingham University’s new Sport and Fitness Centre (pictured).

I was delighted today to be invited to the official opening of the building and to be introduced to the Princess Royal who unveiled the plaque.

It is a wonderful centre which is being very well used by both students and the local community. And of course Birmingham University will be hosting both the hockey and the squash when the Commonwealth Games comes to Birmingham in 2022.

We all know cars get fined if they go in a bus lane, but I’m shocked to read today that Birmingham’s Labour Council fines West Midlands Ambulance Service every time an AMBULANCE goes in a bus lane.

A report in today’s Birmingham Mail says that WMAS is being fined up to £900 a day for ambulances travelling in a bus lane near Heartlands Hospital – that’s up to fifteen £60 fines a day. WMAS say they weren’t even consulted about the introduction of the bus lane at that location.

If the fines are paid immediately they are reduced to £30, and the article says fines for ambulances using a blue light are waived (waived? – why are they even being issued!!!) It’s still an awful lot of money for our Ambulance Service to have to fork out. And this from a Labour Group which continually talks about how the NHS needs more money, yet takes money off them when an ambulance goes in a bus lane. Not for the first time, I am completely disgusted by Birmingham Labour’s hypocrisy.